It is one thing to go to bed, another to sleep. Tales are told of powder-circled couches which the invaders, surmounting these ramparts by climbing walls, dropped upon from above. There is a legend that there are some people whom they do not bite. “_Nietchevo!_” Is it not Irkutsk, the Paris of Siberia? Why then complain of parasites? Furthermore, a brass band has started up somewhere in the immediate neighborhood the tune of _Viens poupoule!_ to which there echoes a popular accompaniment of tapped glasses and stamping feet. Perhaps one had better get up and see things after all,--“Needs must when the Devil drives.” We dress again. An exploring expedition reveals the big dining-room on the floor below full to the doors with uniformed officers, long-haired students, and assorted civilians. All are drinking and smoking. On a stage at one end of the room thirty short-skirted damsels are singing and dancing in chorus, to the great approval of the audience. As the curtain rolls down on an act, the _ci-devant_ dancers descend to their friends on the floor. Corks pop, and sweet champagne flows. The call goes up for “_Papirose!_” and more cigarettes and more bottles come thick and fast. Soon there is an air of subdued expectancy, and eager looks are directed to the curtain. Somebody near by leans close and whispers for your enlightenment, “All-black man!” Out comes an old Southern Negro, who sings to the wondering Russians a Slavonic version of the “Suwanee River,” between verses delivering himself, with many a flourish, of a clog-dance. Johnson is the man’s name. How he drifted so far from Charleston he hardly knows himself. He followed the music-halls to ‘Frisco, and somebody, for whom he “has a razor ready,” told him he would make his fortune in Vladivostok. He kept getting further and further into the interior, picking up the language as he went, and turning his songs into the vernacular. Poor chap, the pathos he puts into the “Suwanee River”! He is thinking, in frozen Irkutsk, of the old Carolina homestead, and is singing and dancing his way back. A girl in peasant dress takes the stage after “Sambo.” She is singing some song that is running its course across northern Asia. The lassies at the tables and the men join in. Glasses clink and heels tap. The miners who have made their stake, the prospectors who hope to, the sable-merchants of the Yakutsk, the wool-dealers from Mongolia, all meet here as the first place where the rigors of the hinterland can be compensated. It is very gay--very, very gay.